This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.As the general elections for the 16th Lok Sabha near, Canada has hurled at India the sensitive Khalistan issue, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau going public on the differences between the two governments over their respective perceptions of the anti-Modi agitation among the influential and numerically strong Sikh community in Canada.Will this Khalistan issue aid Modi’s bid or hinder his ambition to recapture power in 2024? Either way, Khalistan, which had died a rather quiet death by the beginning of this century as the people of Punjab became exhausted after two decades of Sikh militancy, appears to be snowballing into a bigger issue, with international ramifications this time. Besides, within days of the Modi extravaganza in the name of G20, Trudeau seems to have taken some of its shine off.Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib, Surrey, British Columbia also led the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) claims NIA which had announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for information leading to his arrest. In June this year, two men gunned down Nijjar outside the gurdwara.After India, Canada has the largest Sikh population and Sikhs enjoy financial and political influence there. Nijjar’s killing led to widespread protests and street demonstrations by the Sikh community and human rights activists, who accused Indian intelligence of Nijjar’s killing.Trudeau, who arrived in Delhi on October 8 to attend the G20 summit, told the Canadian Parliament on September 18 that he had taken up with Indian PM Modi allegations of the involvement of Indian agencies in Nijjar’s killing. During the three-day meet, this rather sour note was kept away from the media. But Trudeau was forced to stay back for 36 hours due to a technical snag in his official plane, while he skipped the official banquet in honour of foreign delegates. He declined the offer of an Indian VIP plane to fly him home and waited for the release of his own plane.Also Read | ‘Prickly Nationalism’: From a G20 High to a Post-Canada LowFor quite some time now, a section of the Sikh diaspora, not just in Canada but also in US, Britain and Australia, has been mobilising support for Khalistan. India has been raising this through official channels. But that has not helped much, insofar as this section of the diaspora has been holding protest demonstrations against Modi, accusing him of majoritarianism and undermining the interests of all minorities, including Sikhs. They are throwing cold water on Modi’s and his alma mater, the RSS’s, attempts to project Sikhism not as a distinct religion but as a panth (subsidiary) of Hindus, causing indignation and outrage among the Sikh community.There are also economic implications from the current standoff. 16 lakh people of Indian origin constitute 3% of the Canadian population. Additionally, 2.3 lakh Indian youth are studying and looking for work in Canada. India’s total trade with Canada is worth US$11.68 billion, which includes 30% of the pulses imported in the last fiscal. Canadian pension funds have invested $55 billion in India. On September 15, the Canadian government announced that it has put on hold the proposed October visit of a high-level trade delegation to Delhi.Of course, Modi’s immediate concerns are political. The BJP presence in Punjab is negligible, except in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal or piggybacking on Bollywood stars ― earlier Vinod Khanna, and now Sunny Deol. So the Nijjar controversy will not weaken an already weak BJP in Punjab much further. However, Modi might be looking at reaping the Khalistan harvest in adjoining territories like Jammu, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, where the BJP appears a bit shaky. The BJP had labelled the year-long farmers’ dharna on Delhi borders and their Republic Day entry into the national capital as a Khalistani conspiracy. But it had serious repercussions for Modi, who eventually capitulated on the three anti-farmers laws. Will the Khalistan issue win him political dividends this time?Faraz Ahmad is a senior journalist based in Delhi.